‘Stoker’ revives Hitchcock thriller about unseemly guest

Three
Australian actresses play three Southern ladies and are directed by a Korean
visionary in this odd, off-kilter Gothic tale loosely based on Alfred
Hitchcock’s 70 year-old Shadowof a Doubt (which featured the
rare screenplay by Thornton Wilder).

He
smoothly ingratiates himself into the family, becoming close, and even closer,
to Evelyn and doing his best to become close, and even closer, to India. But
India finds her Uncle Charlie mysterious and menacing. The always-interesting
Jacki Weaver plays Richard’s aunt, an officious sort who comes to warn that the
avuncular Charlie may not be what he seems.

Director
Park Chan-wook slowly develops this sense of danger with his odd camera angles,
deliberate pacing, exact settings with specific colors, and an uncanny genius
to cinematically render an unstable state of mind.

The DVD
offers a 28-minute “Filmmaker’s Journey,” 10 minutes of deleted scenes, a
five-part, 15-minute “behind the scenes” featurette, and 21 minutes of the
red-carpet premiere. Also includes a singing performance from Emily Wells, and
more.

The Rambler-- Calvin Lee Reeder wrote and directed this puzzler starring Dermot
Mulroney as a recently released convict who seems not to have a name and who
spends almost the entire film wearing sunglasses and a cowboy hat. What passes
for a plot involves the Rambler stealing some money and then heading to Oregon
to work for his brother.

Various
picaresque experiences happen to him along the way, such as being beaten twice
in two street fights and having several odd meetings with a mysterious woman.
In addition to her, he runs into a repeating cast of oddball characters.

The film, however, eventually takes an even sharper turn into David
Lynch territory, and from there, the narrative breaks down while Reeder
delivers some striking images — which, while novel, don’t clear up or resolve
anything. Rated R, 99 minutes.

21 & Over -- This week’s guilty pleasure comes from
the minds of Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, the writers behind The Hangoverseries.

Here,
they also direct their raucous tale about Jeff Chang (Justin Chon) who, on the
night he turns 21, joins his high school friends Casey (Skylar Astin) and
Miller (Miles Teller) in a prolonged night of extreme revelry. Chang has his
medical school entrance exam the next morning, but that does not stop him from
drinking himself into unconsciousness.

The
Homeric quest to get Jeff home sends Miller and Casey into dangerous
territories — a Latina sorority house, several bars, a college pep rally and
various other spots. They deliver some of the off-color gags and extreme humor
expected from Lucas and Scott.

Web Therapy: The Complete
Second SeasonLisa Kudrow co-created, produced and stars as
Fiona Wallice in a series about a counselor who sees her patients via webcam.
And she does it three minutes at a time. Victor Garber plays her beleaguered
husband, Kip, and Lily Tomlin appears as Fiona’s mother.

What
could be static turns into a revolving menu of comedy with some of this
season’s noted guest stars: Rashida Jones, Meryl Streep, Conan O’Brien, Minnie
Driver, Julia Louis-Dreyfus and others. The season’s 12 episodes arrive on two
discs.

Not
rated, 325 minutes. The set also includes a six-minute “behind-the-scenes”
featurette, two director’s cuts with Streep and O’Brien (each about 13 minutes
or so), a music video, five deleted scenes, a 19-minute gag reel and more.

Rectify: First SeasonThis intense Sundance Channel series starred Aden Young as Daniel Holden,
condemned to death row for a murder. In the first episode, he leaves a Georgia
prison after 19 years after being exonerated by DNA evidence. The trouble
arises because he originally confessed to the crime and everyone in his small
town still thinks he’s guilty, including the sheriff and opportunistic
politicians who exploit him and his case.

Daniel’s
sister, Amantha (Abigail Spencer), and mother (J. Smith-Cameron) work to
integrate Daniel back into society, a process that plays out over the season’s
six episodes on two discs. Supremely multi-talented writer-director-actor Ray
McKinnon created the series, while also writing and directing episodes.

Rated
TV-14, 272 minutes. The set includes a four-minute “On Set” featurette and
12-minute and eight-minute “behind-the-scenes” featurettes. Plus, eight minutes
with the cast and a nine-minute segment titled “Inside the Episode With Ray
McKinnon.”

Todd & the Book of Pure
Evil: The Complete Second SeasonThis sophomore
season of 13 episodes presents the unlikely Canadian hit program about the
endangered students at Crowley High (and yes, that is supposed to be Alistair
Crowley).

The
powers of an evil book plague the school and now only four of the youngsters,
led by Todd Smith (Alex House), can defeat it before it takes over the campus,
with the help of zombies. During the season, the hazily explained book also
gives various abilities to unexpecting recipients. With Jason Mewes, Maggie
Castle and Bill Turnbull.

Not
rated, 346 minutes. The two-disc set contains three separate commentaries,
deleted and extended scenes, and featurettes on the musical numbers, a look
behind the scenes, the fallen students of Crowley High, the show’s special
effects and a blooper reel.

Body of Proof: The Complete
Third SeasonTV veteran Dana Delany returns for her third
season as feisty Philadelphia medical examiner Megan Hunt. She feels for the
dead bodies brought in to her and becomes their advocate, working each week to
help track down a murderer, sometimes against the orders of her supervisor
(Jeri Ryan).

In this
season’s 13 episodes on two discs, Hunt goes back to work after an untimely
death at the end of the last season. During this year, her daughter is
kidnapped, and military veterans turn up inexplicably murdered. With Mark
Valley as new detective Tommy Sullivan and Geoffrey Arend as colleague Ethan
Gross.

Rated
TV-14 LSV, 559 minutes. The set also includes a four-minute featurette on the
cinematography with director of photography Patrick Cady. Plus: a five-minute
gag reel, and a three-minute featurette with special-effects master Cory
Jamieson, and another of six minutes on how the effects turn the Los Angles
streets and sets into Philadelphia.

Also available Tuesday on DVD: The Call, Into the White, No, Shark
and Upside Down.

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